


Love it When You Lose

by APendingThought



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Heartbeats, Hugs, M/M, Non-Consensual Cuddling, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pining Lance (Voltron), Romance, Shameless, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), Touch-Starved, klance, work based on art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 03:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15088373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APendingThought/pseuds/APendingThought
Summary: Keith's a slippery little devil when it comes to hugs.  But his evasion isn't just coyness.  Lance loves a good challenge even more than he loves a prolonged hug.





	Love it When You Lose

**Author's Note:**

> Just a brief foray into someone else's sandbox. Fic based off this sweet pic by Hallebean: https://hallebean.tumblr.com/post/170922388760/let-me-hear-your-heartbeat

If Lance had learned anything from this wacky adventure in the stars, it was that Keith was not an easy soul to grab onto for long. He was a slippery devil, wiry and fast. He avoided touches as expertly as he avoided mid-air collision. Despite Lance’s superior height and stunning good looks, he was never able to catch that sullen attitude on legs even by painstaking effort. If he had to describe their public displays of acknowledgement in a word, it would be “thwarted”. Not even the gently blunt explanation of when-you're-a-boyfriend-I-can-touch-you-there held sway. Keith was Keith and he did not like hugs. 

Or any obvious forms of affection. His boy was detached rather than attached.

To Lance this was most perplexing. He'd been raised fluent in the language of casual touch but with someone he loved more than his own heart, he had to admit it hurt each time Keith pulled away. He was never caught off guard and never off his radar.

Even deeply absorbed in a star chart or navigating at his command station, Lance's subtle ambushes were always met with a sudden shift in location and Lance standing red-cheeked with empty open arms. At the breakfast table, he distanced himself or struck up conversation the moment Lance's idle hands began to innocently wander. Keith always seemed taken aback. For him a casual touch extended the length of his bayard. Sweet for occasional if unconventional foreplay but not much else.

To make matters worse, Keith was smugly aware of this.

“Gotta be faster, Lance.”

Nothing made Lance’s blood boil more than Keith’s signature, albeit fetching, arrogance.

“Geez, all I want is a hug!” He’d grouse, kicking his pilot seat in defeat.

“Hey, if you ask first, I'll give.” Keith grinned, eyes crinkling. “But the day you pull a fast one on me will be the day I swab the entire holodeck.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “That a challenge?”

Keith’s mouth said “Nope.” But his eyes said: “Of course it is, idiot.”

Gauntlet thrown. 

Lance's big family touched eachother often. A morning was not a morning until mama had kissed both cheeks, dutifully making her rounds to each member of the family. Marco and Luis would throw him strange looks if he ever shied away from a hug or a brawl. Up until the advanced age of 13, his _hermanita_ Veronica would only fall sleep if she were pressed flush against his chest, one arm wrapped around her waist to ward off the boogey man. Therefore, he had difficulty wrapping his head around the fact that Keith treated all physical contact like an invasion.

Touch was supposed to feel good, wasn't it?

Private space. Keith had been raised with far too much of it. Or maybe his Galra side was just triggered in different ways to the sensation of skin on skin contact. It didn’t seem to matter in bed, especially if Lance was willing to relinquish his role on top. Sex with Keith was different--a more predatory engagement. Keith made love the same way he fought—hard, fast, and triumphantly. Lance couldn’t complain. He’d always wanted to be ravished by a willing and hungry someone. But Keith used sex to forget himself. Lance used it to remember.

When it came down to his turn at the wheel, all of Keith’s prowess dissolved like a sugar cube in hot water. 

Try as he might, he’d been thus far unsuccessful at making slow, sensual Cuban love to Keith. Just holding him, touching him, taking him in with every one of his senses—his touch, his taste, his scent, the sight of his skin flushing pink all over the way Lance’s golden tan never seemed to reciprocate quite as eloquently. The scent of his sweat. The gradual rise of his body temperature. Lance loved to drink him in slowly, savor, not eat and run the way Keith preferred or had been conditioned to prefer. He never got the opportunity unless Keith, too exhausted to argue or escape, was unconscious.

Something had to give.

He tried espionage, aiming not for where Keith was but for where Keith projected to be. He tried occupying his preferred seat at the commissary, got up earlier to take a shower, actually laid a booby trap with strings (and mice intrigue) included down the crew quarters but Keith evaded it as though he'd been aware of it, stepping over his carefully laid trap and making Lance the center of all mouse ridicule.

Keith was winning and the bastard knew it.

Subtlety had never been Lance’s strong point. Nor had sanity. Rhyme and reason didn’t play in warfare. He would have to go on the aggressive side if he wanted to match Keith in this mad duel.

His tactic had to switch. He might, so help him, have to take a fall.

It was an unsuspecting time of day for the paladins. Allura expected them all in the holodeck by a certain time so when he passed Keith in the corridor, looking relaxed in his civilian clothing, he didn’t even make eye contact. 

He threw himself on the floor instead with an audible thud.

“Ow!”

Keith whirled around but, finding Lance merely sprawled across the floor unbroken, he shrugged and continued walking.

“QUIZNAK!” Lance growled for emphasis. “Think I twisted my ankle!”

Keith stopped in his tracks. “You’re fine, Lance. Get up.”

Lance hissed in rehearsed agony. “Nah man.” He gasped. “Hurts. Come on, gimme a hand?”

Keith rolled his eyes, long-suffering indeed. Lance could practically smell him weighing options and analyzing avoidance tactics but to his extreme good fortune, Keith relented, sauntering back to where Lance was making a great show of sitting up.

An extended wrist was the very open Lance needed. 

Jolting up, Lance locked both skinny arms tight around Keith’s waist, forcing him to his knees with a firm tackle. Keith swerved, vocally taken aback by the unexpected assault. Before he could wriggle away, Lance pressed his face hard into his chest and squeezed.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Keith stood rigid, too stunned to put up much resistance. Lance closed his eyes and hummed contentedly.

“Giving you a hug.” Lance replied as though serendipitous bursts of affectionate assault were the most natural thing in the world.

Keith snorted, betrayed. “You said your ankle--.”

“Lied.”

“Figures.” Keith grunted, shifting uncomfortably in Lance’s embrace. “Ungh! Ok, you win. Get offa me now!”

“Let me hear your heartbeat?” He murmured. From this vantage point, Lance knew well this wasn't a request but did Keith the courtesy of staging it as such.

“My...my what?” Keith jerked, twisting roughly to the side in an attempt to shake him off. No dice. Lance was tenacious.

“You heard me, _pendejo._ ” Lance licked his lips in arousal.

“Unh! We don’t have time for this!” Keith fumed but Lance held firm, oblivious to his struggles.

“Patience yields focus, dude.” Lance murmured. “Now stop talking.” He pressed his ear firmer against Keith's sternum, shifting slightly to the left. He could hear the beat muffled behind Keith's shirt--a soft but rapid thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.

“Um…” Keith's protest died in his throat, tensed muscles stiffening awkwardly, arms held mid-air in mock defense. Lance noted the pronounced shift in his breathing as he swallowed hard. It thrilled him a little, utterly ignoring Keith's very real objections.

So long as he kept a strong lock on his wrists, Keith was captive. Owned. In one place. There was so much of the red paladin to experience. The drastic spike of warmth pulsing under his skin, the constant clean sound of his breathing, the charming way his flushed face stayed fixed in wide-eyed shock. His heartbeat was strongest of all--it could be clearly felt and more than clearly heard, knocking from an easy 80 to a frantic 180 as adrenaline and endorphins flooded his system. Lance felt he could easily spend a good varga simply holding on like this if Keith did him the courtesy of not talking (or stabbing him) for that long.

"Mmm. You're all mine, _guapo_." Lance drawled, triumphantly. "And I'm gonna drink you in like a _mojito_ on a hot summer afternoon."

Lance listened to the appealing sounds of Keith moistening his dry lips, the working of his throat.

"Wh-what's a ....a _mojito_?" Keith sounded a little breathless.

"Nevermind. Shut up." Lance sighed, pressing his smile against Keith's T-shirt. “Aw, you’re so worked up babe. Your heart is beating a mile a minute.”

He tried nuzzling his cheek into Keith's abdomen to get him to calm, squeezing him tighter for comfort but it only had the opposite effect. The rapid tempo of Keith's heartbeat began to shift from two separate lub-dub sounds merging into one insistent, barely discernible thrum, vibrating his entire chest. It didn't bother Lance one bit but he wasn't about to let Keith in on that.

“Hunh!” Keith released the paused breath he’d been holding, chest rising and falling faster beneath Lance’s cheek “Caught me off guard.”

“Next time, I’ll be naked.” Lance murmured, causing a forceful skid in the repetitive gallop beneath his cheek. “You’d like that, right?”

Keith didn’t need words to agree in the very open space of the castle’s main corridor. The open space where anyone--Pidge, Hunk, Coran, a nosy space mouse--could intrude. His skin was dampening with sweat, his breathing hitched as it too picked up in speed.

“ _Ai dio_ , take a breath!" Lance huffed a laugh, delighted by the way Keith's belly quivered. 

Keith’s startled shock began to dissolve again to irritation. “Lemme go!” He growled. 

Lance ignored his futile outburst, loving the way Keith’s flustered rage made his heart thud even harder, even making it skip a beat or two. “No.”

“We’re gonna be late!” He protested, pulling back and straining against Lance’s hold. That was no issue for Lance. He expected a fight from Keith. It only made the catch more exciting. Still, the wiggles were getting in the way. 

“Shhh! I’m counting.”

It wasn’t easy to tell one panicked beat from the next and it wasn’t showing any sign of slowing down, even as Keith tried to retake command of his breathing. Lance had to allow him that, he wasn't giving up his prize any time soon.

Lance listened closely, whispering the rapid count of Keith's pulse into the cleft of his pectoral muscles. Such a powerful organ, the tireless engine that kept Keith going in battle when the rest of them were ready to collapse. How he loved to feel it race against his chest when they lay side by side. He adored the way it slowed to a peaceful, even tempo as sleep claimed him. Lance felt his own cheeks heat up as he listened. Playfully, he began drumming his fingers against the small of Keith’s back.

“Um ta-um-ta-ta-um-ta-um-ta-ta!” Lance hummed along with the nervous pattern, shimmying slightly where he sat. “You know us Cubans, we do everything to a beat. I could drop a sick samba to this.”

“Lance…” Keith sighed, patience waning.

“Hey…” He squeezed Keith’s hips in a firm hug. “….you can listen to mine later if you want?”

Keith’s only response was a deep breath, a silent but clear surrender. Lance grinned, pulling his body in even closer.

“I love it when you lose.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the Klance team out there, it has been a pleasure.
> 
> S6 has truly ignited my muse again and I have several new Voltron fics in the works soon to be up on the archive. I hope they are as fun to read as they were to write.


End file.
